Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

If I ask the Taoiseach what happened at those meetings I will be ruled out of order by the Ceann Comhairle, so I will ask my question in a different way. What is the point of the Cabinet committee on social policy when the whole thrust of the Government's economic and social policies is anti-social in terms of its effect on working people and poor people as well as middle and lower income earners? The whole thrust of what the Government has done for three years in terms of austerity has had a huge anti-social effect. Those aged under 25, by the way, would laugh at the Taoiseach's assertion that core social welfare payments have not been hit, not to mention those people who are threatened with the loss of their unemployment benefits if they do not take part in forced labour schemes - that is, internships with big businesses for virtually no pay. It is quite incredible.

The Taoiseach told us some time ago that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government was a member of the committee on social policy. How does that square with the same Minister being responsible for heaping extra taxes on people's homes and, if the Government gets away with it - although I am confident that people will stand up and fight - the imposition, according to the Government's figures, of a charge of €580 for the water delivered to their homes? How does that sit with a Cabinet committee on social policy which, one would presume, aims to ensure that the policies emanating from the Government are in the interests of ordinary people in society and not anti-social in their effects, such as those being imposed by members of that same committee as part of the Government?

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